Specialized in their own take on hypnagogic music, based on temporal shifts, retrofuturistic sounds and vaporous textures, Dave Saved and NPLGNN recently offered one of the best illustrations of their aesthetics with All You Can Hold In The Falling, a new split EP for Athens’ imprint Hypermedium. They collaborated on our 420th podcast, a 30-minutes mixtape that evidences this specific sound. As a companion piece, Dave Saved and NPLGNN also agreed to answer our questions on their new EP, their signing on Hypermedium and their common project Forever Now.

All You Can Hold In The Falling is the latest in a series of collaborations between you two since 2017. What does working on music together change, compared to your solo production?

Dave Saved: There are no big differences for me, also because for this last EP the tracks are totally split, the only difference is in the constant exchange of ideas with Giovanni during the making of the record.

NPLGNN: I see Forever Now and the things related as a kind of B-side of my personality but anyway strictly connected in some ways with my solo stuff. On the production side I started to use software to make and edit my music that was something totally new for me.

- Listening to your works had me wondering about your writing process – how do you typically produce your tracks? Do you have an usual process, and was there any difference working on this release for Hypermedium?

Dave Saved: Generally I always try to find new ways or different approaches to produce music, I tend to get tired of doing the same things in the same way. For the latest releases I used a lot of samples and audio material recorded a bit randomly around, then I re-edited everything using software and various effects in order to get sounds that were interesting for me.

NPLGNN: The writing process for this record has been more or less the same as Eternal Flame. Based on the idea behind the record, discussed with Davide in long and most of the time meaningless chats, I started to collect cuts and samples from few seconds to even ten minutes long. Once I got them I started to edit everything and writing the track choosing samples and cuts that convince me more. Differently from Eternal Flame in Empathic New Utopia this process has been made more on my own music.

You founded Forever Now, your own label, in 2017. You’ve released two tapes of yours so far: do you have more plans for the future, especially in terms of opening it to other artists, or is it strictly an output for your own production?

Dave Saved: Forever Now is mainly born as a sort of our archive where we can feel free to experiment with our ideas. The main idea behind was to take snapshots of certain moments trying to print them in order to leave a sort of photograph of that precise period.

NPLGNN: I guess both of us don’t see Forever Now as a closed space. On my point of view at the moment we still need to focus more on develop the discourse we’re trying to do with the label trying also to release more music out.

Your EP is technically a split, rather than a collaboration per se. The aesthetics of your previous works can be found throughout though: was there still an amount of collaboration, or did you completely work on the tracks on your own?

Dave Saved: The tracks are completely separate in their production, they work independently on the music but we constantly confront each other on the contents, sometimes generating noteworthy chats.

NPLGNN: As we did per Eternal Flame we defined a common idea or a set of ideas and we worked on the tracks completely on our own. This time we actually heard the track of each other just when they were finished and we were very surprised ourselves for the outcome on how the tracks were fitting together.

Your sound is more experimental than that of the previous two Hypermedium release, though it definitely fits the label’s line and name. How did you meet them and come to release through their imprint?

Dave Saved: We got in touch with them after our first release on Forever Now « Eternal Flame ». The guys loved the music and the idea behind it and proposed us to do something similar for Hypermedium, the rest came all by itself.

NPLGNN: I guess I stumbled in the label thanks to Ruben Patino that shared his record somewhere. The guys were really into our Eternal Flame tape, we started to have a chat via soundcloud about the release that easily ended up in the idea to do something similar for their label.

How did the collaboration with Hypermedium go? Did you present them with the final works, or was there some exchange on the tracks themselves?

Dave Saved & NPLGNN: We presented them directly the two tracks finished. They gave us total freedom in the making, we are so happy that they liked the material as it is today on the record from the first moment.
- I found this new EP was one of the finest examples of the atmospheres you have been developing on your previous releases, a perfect illustration of the sounds you are going for – was that another reason behind the decision to release it on Hypermedium, and in this split format?

Dave Saved & NPLGNN: The record evolved naturally starting from the material and ideas of our first releases in split and in collaboration for Forever Now. This release moved on more serious and less playful tones than the previous ones and unintentionally we put together two players that communicate very well each other.

- Davide, you did the artwork for the release. Could you tell us a bit about the ideas behind the artwork and its link to the music?

Dave Saved: I wanted to create something that was a bit in contrast with the music and that recalled in an easy and recognizable way the scenarios of the record. I was very interested in the idea that the record looked like an acid 12 » recalling a sort of “club thing” in the easiest way possible.

Could you let us know about some of your new/future projects?

Dave Saved: I’d definitely like to start to work on some new material for Forever Now but organizing the stuff and the ideas takes a long time, we’ll see what happens sooner or later.

NPLGNN: As we talk i’m working on the new release for my mixtape series “MBE series” which I hope will be out before the summer. Me and Davide are also trying to start to work on new material for Forever Now but the process it’s kinda slow right now Ha!